The present invention relates to a method for processing a document to cause the transmission destination to change the document according to the conditions of a place in which a receiver reads the document. Such conditions include time, season, amount of money, religion and the like included in a type of document such as an electronic mail message to a foreign country. The present invention also relates to a method for processing a document for changing the contents of the above elements which are contained in the transmitted document, and a machine translation apparatus for translating, for example, an English sentence containing information searched by a browser which searches and displays information offered by WWW (World Wide Web), into Japanese.
In the case of describing greetings appropriate to time, season, etc. on an electronic mail message to be sent abroad, it is desirable to describe the greetings appropriate to time and season according to the conditions of the destination country in consideration of a time difference from the destination country, local time of the arrival of the electronic mail at the destination country, season, religion in the destination country, etc. For instance, in the case of transmitting an electronic mail message to the USA from Japan at night, the suitable greeting is xe2x80x9cGood morningxe2x80x9d.
Especially, when a time is included in the body of a letter, unless the time is described by converting into the local time in the destination country, there is the possibility that the receiver misunderstands the time.
Furthermore, by the Internet communication boom, there have been increase in the number of users who receive electronic mail messages from foreign countries or browse the information offered by the WWW. Consequently, there are high demands for software for translating the electronic mail messages received from foreign countries on the Internet, information distributed over the Internet, etc. into Japanese, and a large number of translation software are commercialized.
However, when the user is unfamiliar with the conditions of the destination country, the user is required to gather information about the conditions of the country through book, on-line, etc. and the drafting of an electronic mail message becomes complicated. Conventionally, however, there has been no such supporting means taken as to draft a document in consideration of conditions of another country, such as a time difference from the destination country, season, amount of money, religion, etc. of the destination country.
In the present state, there has been no translation software providing sufficient quality for practical use. Accordingly, when the contents are not understandable from the translated sentence, the user tries to go back to the display of the original sentence, guesses the inadequately translated part, searches where the corresponding part lies in the original, and further, examines the meaning of the part by referring to the dictionary. Once the appropriate translation word has been found, the user returns the display to the previous Japanese translation and applies the examined results to the part which seems inadequate, and thus by repeating trial-and-error of adapting the examined results, is finally able to understand the contents. However, between languages having different word orders such as English and Japanese, it is difficult to search out the corresponding part.
Furthermore, in the present translation software, words which failed to be translated are left as the original words when generating a translation, and accordingly, the user is required to refer to the dictionary to seek the meaning of the words.
The present invention has been made to resolve the above problems. It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a document processing method in which a document appropriate to conditions of the transmission destination can be processed at the transmission destination, even through the user on the transmission side prepares a document without considering the conditions such as a time difference, season, amount of money, religion, etc. of the country of the receiver who reads the document, by causing the transmission destination to change the contents of the element according to the conditions of the country in which the receiver reads the document, such as time, season, amount of money, religion and the like included in the document such as an electronic mail message to a foreign country, and by changing the contents of the element as described above contained in the transmitted document.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a machine translation apparatus offering an excellent user interface which makes reference to a sentence or word in the original from the corresponding sentence or word in the translation easy, and makes reference to dictionary data corresponding to the word in the original easy by processing a document like an HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) document which forms a link between the sentence, word, etc. of a translation and the corresponding original sentence, word, etc. acquired in the process of the translation, and by processing a document like an HTML document which forms a link between the original language and the corresponding dictionary data acquired in the process of the translation with making reference to dictionary data base.
The document processing method of the present invention is characterized in that, in a method for processing a document containing an element whose contents are to be changed according to conditions of a place where a communication terminal apparatus for reading the document is disposed, information for specifying the element is stored, said element is extracted by analyzing the processed document according to conditions of the transmission side, the extracted element is attached with information indicating that the element is the element whose contents should be changed, and transmission is made.
By the above method, it becomes possible to have a transmission destination such as a terminal apparatus of a receiver, a server which stores a document that a receiver can refer to, and the like, modify a document containing an element whose contents are to be changed according to conditions of the country of the receiver who reads the document, such as time, season, amount of money, religion and the like included in the document such as an electronic mail message to a foreign country. Accordingly, the user on the transmission side need not prepare documents in consideration of the conditions of the country of the receiver who reads the document, such as time, season, amount of money, religion and the like, rather the document itself suits the conditions of the transmission destination which can be processed on the receiving side.
The document processing method of the present invention is characterized in that, in a method for processing a document appropriate to a place where a communication terminal apparatus for reading said document is disposed from a received document, by storing information for specifying an element whose contents are to be changed to the contents appropriate to the above conditions and corrective information for changing said contents, extracting said element by analyzing the received document, and modifying the contents of the extracted element into the contents appropriate to the above conditions.
By the above method, transmission destination such as a terminal apparatus of a receiver, a server which stores a document that a receiver can refer to, and the like, can modify a document containing an element whose contents are to be changed according to conditions of the country of the receiver who reads the document, such as time, season, amount of money, religion and the like included in the document such as an electronic mail to a foreign country. Accordingly, the user on the transmission side need not prepare a document in consideration of the conditions of the country of the receiver who reads the document, such as time, season, amount of money, religion and the like, rather the document itself suits the conditions of the transmission destination which can be processed on the receiving side.
The document processing method of the present invention is characterized in that, in a method for processing a document containing an element whose contents are to be changed according to conditions of a place where a communication terminal apparatus for reading the document is disposed, information for specifying the element is stored, said element is extracted by analyzing the processed document according to conditions of the transmission side, the extracted element is attached with information indicating that the extracted element is the element whose contents are to be changed according to said conditions together with reference specifying information for specifying a reference destination in which corrective information for changing the contents appropriate to the conditions of the place where the communication terminal apparatus for reading said document is disposed is memorized, and transmission is made.
By the above method, it is possible to cause the transmission destination which is operable under the same operation system as the transmission side but is different in type of machine or utilize different application software such as mail software to modify the contents of the element whose contents are to be modified according to the conditions of the country of the receiver who reads the document, such as time, season, amount of money, religion, etc. contained in the document such as an electronic mail message. Accordingly, the transmission side user need not prepare the document in consideration of the conditions such as a time difference, season, amount of money, religion, etc. of the country of the receiver who reads the document rather the document itself suits the conditions of the transmission destination which can be processed on the receiving side.
The document processing method of the present invention is characterized in that, in a method for processing a document appropriate to conditions of a place where a communication terminal apparatus for reading the document is disposed from a received document to which are attached information for specifying a reference destination which stores corrective information for modifying the contents according to said conditions along with information indicating that the contents are to be modified according to the above conditions, the element is extracted by analyzing the received document, the reference destination specified by the reference specifying information attached to the extracted element is referred, and based on the corrective information stored in the reference destination, the contents of the extracted element is changed to the contents appropriate to the conditions as mentioned above.
Accordingly, the transmission destination which is different in type of machine or utilizes different application software such as mail software but is operable under the same operation system as that of the transmission side, can change the contents of the element whose contents are to be changed according to the conditions of the country of the receiver who reads the document, such as time, season, amount of money, religion and the like included in the document such as an electronic mail. Accordingly, the user on the transmission side need not prepare the document in consideration of the conditions of the country of the receiver who reads the document, such as a time difference, season, amount of money, religion and the like, rather the document itself suits the conditions of the transmission destination which can be processed on the receiving side.
The document processing method of the present invention is characterized by restoring a document processed according to conditions of the transmission side and displaying said document correspondingly to a document modified to the contents appropriate to conditions of a place where a communication terminal apparatus for reading the document is disposed.
By the above method, the document receiving side is enabled to compare the two documents to confirm places modified to the contents appropriate to the conditions of the place where the communication terminal for reading the document is disposed.
The machine translation apparatus of the present invention is characterized, in a machine translation apparatus for generating a translation by analyzing the original and referring to a dictionary data base in which dictionary data including selected words for a translation from the original word is stored, by comprising link document generating means for generating a document for forming a link between a constituting element of the original and a constituting element of a translation corresponding to the constituting element of the original; display means for displaying the original and the translation; and display control means for accepting a designation on the displayed translation or on the constituting element of the original and causing said display means to display the portion of the original or translation corresponding to said constituting element.
The machine translation apparatus of the present invention generates a document like an HTML document which forms a link between a constituting element such as a sentence, word, etc. of the original and a corresponding constituting element such as a sentence, word, etc. of the translation, acquired in the process of generating the translation by analyzing the original and referring to the dictionary data base. When the user designates the displayed translation or original sentence, word, etc., the apparatus displays the original or translation sentence corresponding to the designated sentence or word.
By the above, even between the languages having a different word order, the user can easily compare the original with the translation.
The machine translation apparatus of the present invention is characterized in that the link document generating means have means for generating a document for forming a link between the original word and the dictionary data corresponding to said original word; the display means have means for displaying the original word and the dictionary data; and the display control means have means for accepting a designation on the displayed original word and causing the display means to display the dictionary data corresponding to said original word.
The machine translation apparatus of the present invention displays the dictionary data corresponding to the designated original word, in addition to the above, when the user designates the original word or the word not translated in the translation.
By the above, the user can easily obtain other selected words for the translation.
The machine translation apparatus of the present invention is characterized in that the display control means are means for causing the display means to display the original of the designated constituting element and the translation corresponding to said constituting element, or display the designated original word and the dictionary data corresponding to the designated original word, by dividing the display region.
The machine translation apparatus of the present invention is to have the display means display the sentence, word, etc. designated by the user as above and the corresponding sentence, word, etc. of the translation by dividing the display region. Also, it causes the display means to display the original word designated by the user in the original or translation and the corresponding dictionary data by dividing the display region.
By the above, comparison between the original and its translation, or between the original word and the dictionary data thereof, is more facilitated.